RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — Scams are part of our lives these days, with criminals looking to defraud us in a variety of ways— especially with smartphones, computers and social media keeping us more connected than ever.
What motivates those scammers? CBS 17 Consumer Investigator Steve Sbraccia found out and gives us a rare look into how they operate.
When it comes to scams, criminals in various countries specialize in certain types of scams.
The website Tech Business News categorizes them in this way.
It found that scam cases originating in China tend to be:
- Emergency Scams.
- IRS or Government Imposter Scams.
- Foreign Money Exchange Scams
- Online Business Opportunities & Employment Scams
When it comes to scams from Pakistan there’s a trend towards:
- Attempts to gain personal information
- Creation of fake online payment channels
- Digital Marketing Fraud
- Prize & lottery scams
In India, the top scams are:
- Refund Scams
- Tech Support Scams
- Government Rebate Scams
- Digital Marketing Scams
In Nigeria, it’s:
- Lottery Scams
- Crypto Scams
- Charity fraud
- Work-at-home job scams
“The frank and sad truth is that almost everyone in Nigeria, every youth, in Nigeria does scamming,” said a man who ask us to identify him only as “Chris.”
Chris is a reformed scammer who CBS 17 located while doing a report on romance scams earlier this month in cooperation with Social Catfish, a company dedicated to preventing online scams through reverse search technology.
Chris told CBS 17 unemployment in Nigeria is so high among youth that many turn to scamming.
Sbraccia wanted to know if those activities were confined to romance scamming.
Chris said youthful Nigerian scammers he’s familiar with are involved in a variety of activities including bitcoin and lottery scams.
For Chris, the motivation for him to get into scamming was his inability to pay for school.
“I had four siblings who are in the university, so my parents are paying a lot of money to sponsor all five of us,” he said. “In my second year, I tried to find a way to get money, but, you know, I couldn’t get money.”
“It’s not easy to make money in Nigeria,” said Chris. “So, I just went into online scamming.
He made tens of thousands of dollars before a guilty conscience about his way of life forced him to quit.
That’s rare for scammers who experts say, are becoming more sophisticated.
“We’re funding the people that are hacking us and because they’re so successful, they’re getting more money and they’re becoming more successful,” said Pete Nicoletti of Check Point Software Technologies.
He said scammers are so sophisticated in many parts of the world that they are being treated like employees of big corporations.
“What we’re paying them is enabling them to become more sophisticated and getting better employees,” he said. “They’re getting paid for zero days and, have troubled ticketing systems and having affiliate marketing programs.”
It appears the situation is going to get worse because there’s no let up in scamming attacks from around the globe.
According to a report by Cybersecurity Ventures, it’s estimated Cybercrime will cost the world $8 trillion this year.
The report claims, if cybercrime were a nation, that would make it the world’s third-biggest economy behind the US and China.
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